Sermons from the Episcopal Church of the Redeemer

Incomplete Narratives - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

 I have this idea of who we are.  A narrative that I've been raised with that is deep in my bones and my blood and I hold it sacred.  The people of Israel that we hear in the story that we hear week in and week out about Jesus and his interaction, it's with his own people. They have a story too. They have this narrative and today we see Jesus attacking that narrative Directly,  I'm not sure if you saw it.
We almost miss it because it's right in front of us,  but he says Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. Jerusalem is not just a city. Jerusalem is a symbol and a promise. Jerusalem stands for all that God has promised God's people. Jerusalem is the embodiment of the promise that God made to Israel.
Jerusalem is the realization of that promise.  Jerusalem is their hopes and their dreams. of freedom and uniqueness and power. Jerusalem is where the temple is, where God dwells. Jerusalem is their spiritual identity as a people. And Jesus says, Oh, I know Jerusalem. That's where all the truthtellers go to die. 

Beloved Returned - The Rev. Brooklin Taylor

 I am convinced that the next 40 days are some of the most radical and honest days that we hold as a church.  In the face of a culture that tries to deny death, hide our fragility or the fragility of others, and cover up our brokenness, we,  the church, are ready. 
have literally marked out the next six weeks  to stare at our mortality, our fragility, our limitations, and our mistakes right in the face,  both as individuals and as a collective whole.  It is a powerful, truth telling time of year.  Lent is also the time of year that we enter into counter empire practices.
of self examination, repentance,  prayer, fasting, and works of love.  These Lenten practices are not, as I used to think,  about making ourselves look good enough for God,  or for each other,  or for ourselves.  Rather,  these practices are an invitation to us to return.  To return again to the God of all mercy,  and to return again  to our identity  as beloved children of God. 
Though this Lenten season does come each year, I'm not going to pretend that things feel normal in our world right now.  Everything feels so incredibly full of change, violence, and disconnection.

Listening to Jesus - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

 But in our daily lives, when we look for love. Anywhere  in our life,  we are listening to Jesus.  When you look for the love that is present, that surrounds you, in whatever way you are able to find it, when you look for the love that is all around you, when you see that love, you are finding Jesus in your daily life.
And when you follow that love, you are listening to Jesus.  Listening to Jesus does not have to be an abstraction, and it doesn't have to be about something that happened a long time ago. Jesus is living, and active, and present in our lives. Jesus is working for our salvation, our healing, and our reconciliation.
Our lives are filled to the brim with the love of God. It is not for us to pretend it's not there. It is for us to listen, to see, and to recognize. We don't have to go to the top of a hill to find Jesus. Jesus is living. with us.

True Healing - Rev. Dr. Charles Halton

 And pictures of that burning monk  were on the front page of almost every newspaper in the world.  It, the photograph documented this radical and horrific event  that many people in the United States did not understand.  And one of those people who did not understand this  was Martin Luther King, Jr.  Dr. King had struck up a friendship with another Vietnamese monk  named Thich Nhat Hanh.
And  both King and Hanh were working for peace within their different contexts in that common goal of striving for peace. gave them a bond of friendship,  and even though they only met once in person, they exchanged letters with one another, encouraging each other to keep up their holy work.  In one of those letters, Han explained to Martin Luther King what was going on behind these monks setting themselves on fire. 
Han told King that these monks wanted their oppressors to stop hurting innocent people,  but they did not want to commit violence  against their oppressors in order to do that.

Discerning between Good and Evil - The Rev. Dr. Herschel Wade

Let me give you an example. I am a four on the Enneagram. My sin is envy, which originates from seeing myself as fundamentally flawed. Others possess “things” that I do not and cannot possess. As a result, we go out of our way to be different; we do so to be loved and to feel significant. We are called “The Individualists.” A strong drive to be different has sometimes been counterproductive, resulting in self-inflicted isolation and loneliness. Self-image is sometimes a problem, so much so that my talents did not cross my mind until now. 
 
You can see that my work has been cut out for me when it comes to discernment. Discerning poorly may have left me stuck in self-pitying, self-destructive, and self-absorbed states of envy. However, with continued work and discernment, type fours such as myself can shed the sin-attached false self who is always longing to be loved, to be enough, to be loved by God for who I am.  

Do Not Be Afraid - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

But of course, Jesus says, do not be afraid in direct response to Peter, who upon seeing this miracle and realizing God's presence and understanding on some level, the magnitude of God's power, drops to his knees and says, get away from me because I'm not worthy.  And boy, if that might not be the greatest fear we have, that God will show up, that God will call each of us into a life of love, and that we might not be worthy of the task.
 
Who am I?  Who am I to be part of God's transforming, reconciling, and healing plan?  I'm just Phil.  I'm just trying to get by, and you're inviting me into a mission?  Into living a life with a deeper purpose for the sake of loving and healing others?
 
You're saying you're going to transform the way I experience the world so that I see the world with different eyes and I experience love differently, and then I go along with you and love and heal this world too? Why me? Not because I don't want to, but you have way better people to pick.  And here's, oh, here's what I love about Jesus.
 
He doesn't care. 

Letting baggage go - The Rev. Dr. Herschel Wade

Not long ago, in a spiritual direction session, My companion and I spoke about the relinquishing of baggage. Letting baggage go to give space to my future self. Placing that baggage at the feet of Jesus. Placing that baggage on the altar as a sacrifice of a part of myself to God.
Like a good and proper Gestalt pupil, I spoke to the future, my future self. It is a self that is not completely known. It is a self, fraught with uncertainty. But it is a self, pregnant with possibilities. Great possibilities, Holy possibilities, Spirit-infused possibilities.
I don't remember exactly what I said to my future self. I do remember speaking about my fear of the unknown. A fear so great. I was dragging my feet. Sometimes I wanted to pick up my baggage and return to the place that I knew well.

Impossible - The Rev. Philip DeVaul

Your salvation is not about you. It is about God.

Now maybe you're not wealthy. Maybe money is not the issue for you. I invite you to close your eyes for a second
and think. Like think about what are the
things that you lean on to make sure you know that you're okay.

What are they?

Probably is money for a lot of us. You can open your eyes
when you want. I grew up, um, I didn't
grow up very much. I grew up short. Um, I was, I was, I was always the shortest
kid in my class, um, I was never very athletic, I was never like, like one of
the cool kids in that way, right? But I could talk myself into and out of
anything.

And I find myself even now trying to talk myself into and
out of my own salvation. That's the way
that I, that's the way that I know that
I'm okay. So when I actually practice
silent prayer, and I learn to shut
up. God shows up and reminds me, I'm not talking my way into heaven. Heaven is showing up in my heart and in my
life, if only I have eyes to see it and am willing to acknowledge my need for
God.

All Things Ungodly and Other Reconcilable Differences - The Rev. Melanie W. J. Slane

We all know that divorce happens. It happens to married
people. It happens to siblings. It happens to friends, and neighbors, and
communities. It even happens to countries.
Divorce, or the act of separating ourselves from one
another, is the result of human error in understanding God's intentions for
humanity.
Divorce is a common response to our amnesia (or defiance) of
the reality that human beings were made for relationship and that we actually
need one another. We always have.
You know who knows this?
Children.

The Path is made by Walking - The Rev. Joyce Keeshin

In the business world I lived in, When someone said the left hand doesn't know
what the right hand is doing, that was not a good thing. That was talking about things falling apart
pretty quickly. But here I believe Jesus
is speaking with hyperbole, delivering a powerful message for us. To give our attention to whatever we are
doing.

What our hands are doing. Where our feet are carrying
us. What our eyes are focused on. To be awake within ourselves and in our
interactions with others. To not fall
into or be in default ways of being that set up stumbling blocks for
others, and that do not follow Jesus
path of love. The path is made by
walking.

Walking makes the path.
Sometimes it's clear when we're starting a new path. Choosing a new school, a new work
position, retirement, sabbatical, being in a committed relationship, suffering, suffering a, a deep loss. New experiences with some direction to them. Sometimes they are anticipated, they are
thought through over time, and sometimes they happen spontaneously.